Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Impact of market misallocations on green TFP: evidence from countries along the Belt and Road

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Environmental Science and Pollution Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Based on the idea of a “Community of Human Destiny,” the Chinese government proposed the “Belt and Road” initiative, and clearly proposed to promote green development and strengthen ecological environmental protection. However, a considerable number of countries are resource-rich economies with serious market misallocations. Using the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) combined with the directional distance function (DDF) framework, this paper measures the green total factor productivity (GTFP) and its items (i.e., technical change and efficiency change) of 33 countries along the Belt and Road in 1995–2012, and then the impact of market misallocations on GTFP is analyzed. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) The main driving force for GTFP promotion in Asian countries came from technical change, while in European countries, it came from efficiency change. (2) Market misallocations had significantly hindered the GTFP of these economies. Countries with greater market misallocations have smaller GTFP. (3) Results based on counterfactual measures showed that GTFP could be increased by up to 4.04% and the average can be increased by 1.24% after eliminating market misallocations.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Angulo-Guerrero MJ, Pérez-Moreno S, Abad-Guerrero IM (2017) How economic freedom affects opportunity and necessity entrepreneurship in the OECD countries. J Bus Res 73:30–37

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aslam AQ, Ahmad SR, Ahmad I, Hussain Y, Hussain MS (2017) Vulnerability and impact assessment of extreme climatic event: a case study of southern Punjab, Pakistan. Sci Total Environ 580:468–481

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bai C, Du K, Yu Y, Feng C (2019) Understanding the trend of total factor carbon productivity in the world: Insights from convergence analysis. Energy Econ 81:698–708

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Banerjee A, Dhillon IS, Ghosh J, Sra S (2005) Clustering on the unit hypersphere using von Mises-Fisher distributions. J Mach Learn Res 6:1345–1382

    Google Scholar 

  • Bartelsman E, Haltiwanger J, Scarpetta S (2013) Cross-country differences in productivity: the role of allocation and selection. Am Econ Rev 103:305–334

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Battese GE, Corra GS (1977) Estimation of a production frontier model: with application to the pastoral zone of Eastern Australia. Aust J Agric Econ 21:169–179

    Google Scholar 

  • Bennett DL, Nikolaev B (2016) On the ambiguous economic freedom–inequality relationship. Empir Econ 53:717–754

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berggren N (2003) The benefits of economic freedom: a survey. Indep Rev 8:193–211

  • Bergh A, Nilsson T (2010) Do liberalization and globalization increase income inequality? Eur J Polit Econ 26:488–505

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bian W, Wang X (2016) A review of research on random frontier analysis of panel data. Stat Re 33:13–20 (in Chinese)

    Google Scholar 

  • Chen S, Golley J (2014) ‘Green’ productivity growth in China’s industrial economy. Energy Econ 44:89–98

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chung YH, Färe R, Grosskopf S (1997) Productivity and undesirable outputs: a directional distance function approach. J Environ Manag 51:229–240

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark OR (1940) Interception of rainfall by prairie grasses, weeds, and certain crop plants. Ecol Monogr 10:243–277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coelli TJ, Rao DSP, O'Donnell CJ, Battese GE (2005) An introduction to efficiency and productivity analysis. Springer Science & Business Media

  • Da-Rocha J-M, Restuccia D, Tavares MM (2019) Firing costs, misallocation, and aggregate productivity. J Econ Dyn Control 98:60–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dinda S (2004) Environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis: a survey. Ecol Econ 49:431–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Du K, Li J (2019) Towards a green world: how do green technology innovations affect total-factor carbon productivity. Energy Policy 131:240–250

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Eslava M, Haltiwanger J, Kugler A, Kugler M (2013) Trade and market selection: evidence from manufacturing plants in Colombia. Rev Econ Dyn 16:135–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Farhadi M, Islam MR, Moslehi S (2015) Economic freedom and productivity growth in resource-rich economies. World Dev 72:109–126

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster L, Haltiwanger JC, Krizan CJ (2001) Aggregate productivity growth: lessons from microeconomic evidence, New developments in productivity analysis. University of Chicago Press, pp 303–372

  • Hall RE, Jones CI (1999) Why do some countries produce so much more output per worker than others? Q J Econ 114:83–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hsieh C-T, Klenow PJ (2009) Misallocation and manufacturing TFP in China and India. Q J Econ 124:1403–1448

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jin L, Mo C, Zhang B, Yu B (2018) What is the focus of structural reform in China?—Comparison of the factor misallocation degree within the manufacturing industry with a unified model. Sustainability 10:4051

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kuznets S (1957) Quantitative aspects of the economic growth of nations: II. industrial distribution of national product and labor force. Econ Dev Cult Chang 5:1–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li K, Lin B (2015) Measuring green productivity growth of Chinese industrial sectors during 1998–2011. China Econ Rev 36:279–295

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li K, Lin B (2018) How to promote energy efficiency through technological progress in China? Energy 143:812–821

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li K, Song M (2016) Green development performance in China: A metafrontier non-radial approach. Sustainability 8:219–240

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lin B, Du K (2015) Modeling the dynamics of carbon emission performance in China: a parametric Malmquist index approach. Energy Econ 49:550–557

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oh D-h (2010) A global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index. J Prod Anal 34:183–197

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quazi R (2007) Economic Freedom and foreign direct investment in East Asia. J Asia Pac Econ 12:329–344

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Restuccia D, Rogerson R (2008) Policy distortions and aggregate productivity with heterogeneous establishments. Rev Econ Dyn 11:707–720

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Restuccia D, Rogerson R (2013) Misallocation and productivity. Rev Econ Dyn 16:1–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robin I, Salim R, Bloch H (2018) Cost efficiency in Bangladesh banking: does financial reform matter? Appl Econ 50:891–904

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shen Z, Boussemart J-P, Leleu H (2017) Aggregate green productivity growth in OECD’s countries. Int J Prod Econ 189:30–39

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tombe T (2015) The missing food problem: trade, agriculture, and international productivity differences. Am Econ J Macroecon 7:226–258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang H-J, Ho C-W (2010) Estimating fixed-effect panel stochastic frontier models by model transformation. J Econ 157:286–296

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang X, Shao Q (2019) Non-linear effects of heterogeneous environmental regulations on green growth in G20 countries: evidence from panel threshold regression. Sci Total Environ 660:1346–1354

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wang Q, Zhou P, Shen N, Wang S (2013) Measuring carbon dioxide emission performance in Chinese provinces: a parametric approach. Renew Sust Energ Rev 21:324–330

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Yeung LL, Azevedo PF (2010) Measuring efficiency of Brazilian courts with data envelopment analysis (DEA). IMA J Manag Math 22:343–356

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou P, Ang BW, Han JY (2010) Total factor carbon emission performance: a Malmquist index analysis. Energy Econ 32:194–201

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou P, Ang BW, Zhou D (2012) Measuring economy-wide energy efficiency performance: a parametric frontier approach. Appl Energy 90:196–200

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71773028, 71804044, 71603079, 71974054), the Hunan Natural Science Foundation (No. 2019JJ40039), the Education Department Project of Hunan Province (No. 17A142), and the International Clean Energy Talent Programme (No. LIUJINFA[2017]5047-201702660011).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Qing Zhang and Fenghao Yan contributed equally to this analysis.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Archives of Hunan Normal University, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, Hunan, China

    Qing Zhang

  2. Key Laboratory of Computing and Stochastic Mathematics (Ministry of Education of China), School of Mathematics and Statistics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, 410081, People’s Republic of China

    Fenghao Yan & Ke Li

  3. School of Economics and Trade, Hunan University, Changsha, 410081, Hunan, China

    Hongshan Ai

Authors
  1. Qing Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Fenghao Yan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Ke Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Hongshan Ai
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hongshan Ai.

Additional information

Responsible editor: Eyup Dogan

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhang, Q., Yan, F., Li, K. et al. Impact of market misallocations on green TFP: evidence from countries along the Belt and Road. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 35034–35048 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06601-0

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06601-0

Keywords

Search

Navigation